Board

Collette Carter

Born in St. Louis, MO, and raised in New York City, Collette Carter a self-identified Black Queer Fat Femme comes to Atlanta as the former co-director of the Audre Lorde Project, a community organizing center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two-Spirit, Trans and Gender Non-Conforming people of color. Collette brings over fifteen years experience in community building, leadership development, nonprofit management, theater arts and film. Her philosophy is that the heart of movement-building is the work of making spaces which help us sustain hope, the possibility for survival, as well as transformation.

Ada Smith

Ada Smith is a queer Appalachian from and currently living in Whitesburg, KY. She is the Program Coordinator at Appalshop‘s Appalachian Media Institute, which trains young people from eastern Kentucky on how to use media to address the critical issues in their communities. She is also a founding member of the only youth-led, Appalachian regional network-the STAY Project.

Jardyn Lake

Jardyn Lake, aka Sweetboi, is a black/queer cultural activist, youth worker, and artist from Jacksonville, Florida. Jardyn became a SONG member after being affirmed, baptized and radicalized in the holy waters of radical Southern youth organizing and leadership at the Highlander Center in 2005. A firm believer in youth power and voice, Jardyn brings over seven years of queer youth organizing and HIV/AIDS advocacy to the Board. A graduate of Temple University [B.A. African-American Studies] and University of London’s SOAS [M.A. African Studies], Jardyn is interested in creating a queer Black and African transnational dialogue and cultural-historical exchange between artists, activists, scholars, visionaries, and the like. Jardyn is an avid sweet tea drinker, lover of all things dapper and dandy, and a world traveler.

Kendra R. Johnson

Kendra R. Johnson is a native Arkansan. She prides herself on being a lifelong volunteer and general do-gooder. Her activism began in the 90s when she co-founded the first lesbian/bi-sexual support group at Spelman College and hasn’t stopped since. She currently serves as the Board Chair for Southerners on New Ground (SONG) and as the State Director for HRC Arkansas. Kendra is thrilled to be working to build a better, more equitable South that is strengthened by racial and economic justice and a thriving LGBT community. As a mom of two, her passion is building better world where dignity and respect are part of the societal fabric for generations to come.

Malachi Garza

Malachi Garza is the Director of the Community Justice Network for Youth (CJNY) a national network of over 200 organizations working to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities within the criminal and juvenile justice systems and build localized community alternatives to these systems. Malachi is the current co-chair the youth and community organizing table of Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper initiative. Malachi also serves on the Board of Directors of the School of Unity and Liberation (S.O.U.L.), the Transgender and Intersexed Justice Project (TGIJP) and the Brown Boi Project. Malachi serves Southerners On New Ground, through a board appointment as a National Strategist. Malachi co-founded the Brown Boi Project in 2009 and received the 2015 VotoLatino Innovators Award. Malachi has been working 24/7 to build a liberation focused movement for the past 17 years and believes that we will win.

Caitlin Breedlove

Caitlin Breedlove

Caitlin Breedlove is the Vice-President of Movement Leadership at Auburn Seminary. Since 2003, Caitlin has been organizing and building movements in red states: working across race, class, culture, gender, sexuality and faith. Caitlin is known across social justice movements as a leader, strategist, and writer. She is the former Campaign Director of Standing on the Side of Love at the Unitarian Universalist Association where she served as a bridge between grassroots social movements and the denomination. She is also the former Co-Director of Southerners On New Ground (SONG), where for almost a decade she co-led innovative intersectional movement building work in the LGBTQ sector. Under Caitlin’s co-leadership, SONG led campaigns, trained hundreds of new LGBTQ organizers in the South, built a membership of over 3,000, and became the largest grassroots LGBTQ organization in the South. Caitlin began her work in the South doing popular education and organizer training at the historic Highlander Center in Tennessee. She is the host of the podcast ‘Fortification’, which interviews movement leaders and organizers about their spiritual lives. She currently lives in Phoenix, Arizona.

Aesha Rasheed

Aesha Rasheed is a healer, masseuse and public education advocate who lives in New Orleans. Since Hurricane Katrina she has worked for the self-determination of residents in New Orleans’ recovery. She created the New Orleans Parents’ Guide to Public Schools to help families navigate rapidly changing public schools in New Orleans and founded the New Orleans Parents’ Organizing Network to support parent organizing. She was project manager for the New Orleans Network, an information sharing and collaboration hub for grassroots organizations in post-Katrina New Orleans, and covered education for The New Orleans Times Picayune for five years. She is originally from Guthrie, Oklahoma and has lived in New Orleans since 2000.

Hieu Tran

Hieu Tran (they/them, he/him) is a Viet, chronically ill, tender queer, born and raised in Virginia out of the Viet diaspora.

Hieu comes to the Board from SONG’s on-the-ground organizing in Virginia with listening sessions, the 2011 SONG Organizing Schools, Project South’s Summer Organizing drive, the Wayside Center for Popular Education’s intern program, SONG’s campaign formations, and healthy relationship skills classes in partnership with the Virginia Anti-Violence Project and five other grantees.

Hieu’s projects and interests include farming, finance and economics in late capitalism, artmaking/crafts, southern movement building, and using science fiction to explore the future.

Their work with SONG has been grounded in introverted leadership, unpaid leadership, the underemployed, the 2nd and 3rd shift workers, and the ones no longer with us. Hieu is rooted in our struggle to survive, thrive, and connect to a living movement.